


Dreams Made Flesh

by lotuskasumi



Series: Emily/Outsider: Weak for you alone. [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Body Horror, Did you guys know that Emily has a secret storage place in her room?, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I mention that in this awkward place so y'all can remember it for a later time., Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, That's canon and it made me think of Marya Morevna locking up Koschei the Deathless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8646952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotuskasumi/pseuds/lotuskasumi
Summary: “It’s a sparrow with its wings cut.”And yet, the Mark still burned. His Mark, the Outsider’s burning seal stamped on her soul. She could feel it in her skin; broken and aching as she was, there was still power within her reach.That’s when it hit her. What else were his gifts for if not a way to transform a wound into a badge of terrible pride? What else was the Outsider if not the very same dream made flesh?---Bad dreams plague Emily, and, most unsurprisingly, there's only one person who has the words to patch up the havoc.Spoilers for Dishonored 2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to the Bloodborne - The Old Hunters DLC soundtrack while I wrote this, so it kinda fits that same gothic glorious vibe. It also really fits Emilie Autumn’s “I Want My Innocence Back.”
> 
> If I’m not careful, my first multichapter fic of Emsider is going to be a Bloodborne crossover :U I think that both Emily and the Outsider would fight the plight of hunters and the Healing Church fascinatingly awful, and there’s no way the nightmare realm can’t touch the Void at some point, okay?

As the night unfurls its velvet, star-studded cloak across the Dunwall sky, a new night unfurled deep and treacherous from the buried corners of Emily Kaldwin's mind. Every night for the past two weeks, the geometry of the world in her sleep remolded itself all new, faded, and strange, all for her. Because that is the shape that dreams make: they are the ivory-towers of imagination, impossible, impractical, and the absolute ideal.

But there was nothing ideal about these dreams of hers. All they ever did was terrify.

* * *

 

At first, it started with memories. Old forgotten moments that unearthed themselves like bones in the Wrenhaven Riverbed. Voices Emily would rather forget came roaring back, demanding absolution and attention.

" _Your temper will make a tyrant of you girl,"_ Burrows had spat at her once, years ago, when he still had breath to draw and waste on speech. Her mother had been alive then, too--well out of earshot, of course, which is why Burrows had the nerve to speak to Emily at all. _"If you're not careful, that good name of yours will go to waste on war and steel."_

His words haunted Emily the way that blood refuses to leave a guilty hand. They stained her, darkened her dreams, made her taste iron and heat and hate. Oh, yes, she tasted that, too.

In her dreams, Emily felt her hatred cradle her from these memories that would be better off to rot, forgotten and ignored. Emily's hatred soothed her the way a mother could do, warm like milk and sturdy as a promise. And as she lay in bed at night, waiting for sleep to come again, her hatred soothed her still. The bone weave of her heart, wild creature that it was, expanded with her every rasping breath, and with each gasp the black fire and burning shadow of her fury inched inside that much deeper filling her, slowly sealing itself beneath her skin. This, too, was its own kind of promise, a vow to never be a victim again.

Not that the world didn't try.

 _"The lady has her father's blood,"_ the petty nobles sneered, hiding their prejudice behind forced smiles and staged whispers. _"A pity. She used to be such a sweet child. Such an innocent little thing."_

Emily heard the talk even among her own court, visiting dignitaries and politely hostaged foreign nobles who would stand at her back if only to find the best place to sink a knife.

And oh, they were wrong about her. Corvo Attano's temper was a measured, calculating thing, devious in its subtle genius. Emily, though--Emily was a fire, a maelstrom of ire that took no prisoners, and sought only victims. She argued fearlessly against philosophers, guards, overseers, and even would-be suitors alike. It wasn't that she wanted to be right. She wanted to be heard. And the only way that could happen was if she spoke up.

 _"Someone more of fire than blood."_ Yes, that's what she was. That was how the Outsider had named her. Impossible, inimitable. That was who she became every night in the tangled briar nest of trouble sleep.

It wasn't hard to guess where the hate and the hurt crept from, or what gave the grim worm of grief new legs to crawl deeper into her heart, starting a conquering plague. Emily had never forgotten the agony of her mother's murder, but she also refused to let the pain make itself known where others might spy on it and call it what it was. When she grieved, she did so alone, in private, away from even her father. She mourned under the smoke of tobacco smoke and whiskey, the warm liquor turning her bones to jelly. Naturally, this isolated mourning hadn't been enough to lance the wound left behind by the tragedy of both mother and childhood lost.

"I want my innocence back," Emily used to wish, spending the plea on gleaming stars, or on the first cry of the steam carts running through Dunwall at night. She wished it on the whale bone charms she stole from her father's room, where they sat far back in the only locked drawer in his desk. "I want to be what I was. I want to make my name good again."

The wish, like all her wishes all her life long, went unanswered. Was it any surprise, then, that Emily was so secretly, seethingly, unrepentantly angry?

* * *

 

Through the slow crawl of days since reclaiming her throne and slipping her knife into Delilah's black, battered heart, Emily's own heart had become a garden of slow burning fury.

It was the little things that set her off these days. The chamberlain misplacing her mother's favorite pen, the one Emily used to sign official decrees and notices, thinking it kept some small shard of her mother's spirit in tact. The ear-splitting clink and shriek of a whale bone tea cup set down too roughly on her desk by a maid still hungover from the night before. And Wyman, poor Wyman!, who deserved better than what Emily was now willing to offer, peering stupidly at her from across the table and asking her to calm down.

 _Calm down_. Emily never hated a pair of words or a would-be helpful command more than she hated _calm down_. It set her teeth on edge to hear it, which only made things worse, since it made the person speaking the words feel more inclined to repeat it.

How could she be calm? Harmless things hurt her the worst, as if she were an untreated wound aching for care and getting only dismissive neglect.

It was only due to fear of disgracing her mother's legacy that Emily was able to mask the worst of her temper from everyone but herself--and the Outsider, she guessed. There was no secret he could not uncover, and she had long since abandoned any feelings of unease at the reach of his curiosity. More often than not, it saved Emily a great deal of time that she would usually have to spend explaining herself. There was no need to do that with him. The Outsider understood without effort, even more than she would have liked.

Which was, perhaps, why he was keeping his distance from Emily as her temper raged in silence.

No one else noticed. Not her Inner Court, not her guards, not her maids. Not even Wyman, who she was keeping at a growing distance. Even her father, spymaster and keen observer that he was, noticed nothing about the fury seething constantly beneath his daughter's skin, which left Emily alone with her dreams and her blackest fears bearing fruit within them.

One night, after a particularly wearying day at court, Emily tumbled into bed and buried herself beneath a mound of sheets, pillows, and blankets. Sleep found her in the darkness of her nest, but it was, as usual, troubled and fractured. In her dream, Emily could hear an infant crying. It was a shrill, hideous noise that echoed louder and longer, demanding less to be cared for than to be endured.

In the dream, Emily knew in the strange way that dreams can plant their truths into you--wordless, seamless, all done in an instant--that she had to find the child, and fast. She wasn't the only one hunting the poor thing down; the Whalers were after it too, and the dream vowed that they meant the babe harm.

Meagan--or Billie, rather--appeared in the dream, born out of silver dust and blood-soaked anchors. "Find it first, Emily," she said. "Find it and keep it safe. Dr. Hypatia said she could teach it to sing."

"It's a baby," Emily argued, feeling foolish. "Not a songbird."

Billie shook her head, her scarred, pitted face marked with pity. Silver tears bled from her one good eye, reminding Emily of the Serkonos mines and the ores and the choking, glittering dust.

"It's a sparrow with its wings cut," Billie said. "Let Hypatia fix it. She understands. And so do you."

Pain, instant, blinding, and undeniable, ripped through the dream and knocked Emily off her feet. There was no Outsider to catch her this time, and her fall was as harsh and hard as bones cracking on stone. Each breath was like a knife to her nerves, its blade cutting down to the root of her, finding all her seams and stripping them down to her raw, aching essentials: Grief, fire, and blood, the temper of a tyrant in the shape of a girl.

Emily tried desperately to stand, but her legs were twine and briar-burchwood, weak, sickly, good only for breaking. And her arms... her arms...

_"It's a sparrow with its wings cut."_

And yet, the Mark still burned. _His_ Mark, the Outsider's burning seal stamped on her soul. She could feel it in her skin; broken and aching as she was, there was still power within her reach.

That's when it hit her. What else were his gifts for if not a way to transform a wound into a badge of terrible pride? What else was the Outsider if not the very same dream made flesh?

Swift as a shadow and cold-silent as a grave, the dream unleashed Emily from bone and blood and made her into a wraith. Claws like smoke unfurled from the end of her rat-like knobby hands, growing off of wrists that were sinuous and ever-shifting, blurring the divide between the shadow and her own inner dark. Swift as sin, Emily crawled through the dream, in between the jackboots and bladed hands of the Whalers, outracing their love of blood with something greater, a need that ran deeper.

The baby was still crying, shrieking, sobbing, a klaxon for the vicious and furious to come running from miles around. _Let me reach it in time_ , Emily wished, squeezing  the words through her thoughts, hinging every move she made on making it come true.

It was the only one that did--but then, of course, this was a dream. The baby's cradle sat on top of an ivory tower. It swayed dangerously to and fro with the force of the infant's cries. Without wasting any time, Emily clawed at the stone, trying to climb it before the Whalers arrived. _Let me reach it in time. I want my innocence back. Let me reach it in time!_

Her arms lacked the strength of her will. Emily growled and roared, a beastly thing now with teeth bared and temper unbound, but it was no use. That's how the Whalers found her, for the second time in her life, much like they did on the first. Screaming, scared, grieving.

But Emily was ready for them this time.

In the dream, it was easy, so easy, to tear into them. She was still a shadow, after all. And no man, no matter how cunning or cruel, could outpace his own darkness. It would be ever pinned to his feet, dogging his every step, snapping like hounds hungry for pulp. That's what Emily was now, and oh, how she _thrived_.

The Whalers fell before her like broken glass, shattered and sharp, skittering into jagged pieces that only a miracle could remake whole.

"I won't let you take it!" Emily cried with each limb shattered and skin torn clean from bone. "I want it back and I won't let you bastards take it!"

The Whalers didn't bleed. Their bodies, when broken, let out only the quietest keening wails, like violin strings trembling beneath a master's bow. Emily was making them sing. Miracle most strange, wonder from wounds, she was beating beauty out of the monsters who had carved up her childhood and devoured it, grinning.

Far up above, the cradle grew still. The baby laughed, and the sound tumbled down from the ivory tower like the first snowfall, graceful and helpless. It blended with the arias of opened veins and shredded sinew scattered around Emily's dark, vaporous feet, and when she opened her arms to embrace the sound, she saw feathers, raven-dark and ribbon-long, bursting from her arms. The Outsider's Mark glowed molten white against her new flesh. She was vengeance, she was justice, terrible and transformed.

Then and only then did guilt inch its way into the ruined cavern of her heart.

What would he say if he could see her now? What would Corvo say--worse still, what would her mother _do_?

* * *

 

Emily flung herself awake, her body jerking upright off the pale linen pillows and sheets tangled around her bed. A scream was in her throat, read to tear out of her lips and shatter the silence of her room. And she would have yelled herself raw and senseless if not for the Outsider--more specifically, his arms, his lips, and his voice, in that order.

The Outsider's arms were all angles and chilling cold to the touch, which made his embrace especially excruciating, like steel buried in the heart of Tyvia. No surprise, then, that Emily shivered at his touch--more surprising was it that she leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his back with a soft, grateful moan.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she said, surprising them both.

The Outsider's lips pressed against the shell of Emily's ear, silencing the world until it was reduced down to just the two of them. All she heard, all she felt, all she _knew_ was him and him alone, his shadow, his cold touch, his strange scent.

The Outsider's voice, when he spoke, was like a tongue tasting the length of her spine--warm, unwavering, and deliciously curious.

"Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin, First of her Name," he breathed, "You are no tyrant. You are no shameful, creeping thing--nor are you that infant shrieking in its tottering crib."

Emily was close enough to notice the stillness of his unbeating heart. She pulled herself up against him with renewed furor, more than willing to share her own if her would ask. If her blood was fire than her touch was like kindling, and the Outsider, in the secret home whispered in his ancient bones, was starting to wonder what it would feel like to burn.

"You were not spared from the monsters of ambition," he continued, his words like balm for the wounds inside her still, "but you survived them. Let that mean something."

It was exactly what she needed to hear. There was only one thing to do now.

Moonstruck, Emily gently disentangled herself from the Outsider's grasp and leaned forward. With her eyes shut tight and her mind made up, she kissed his throat where the wound that took his life was made. He had traced it for her once, drawing a thin crescent arc back and forth with his shadowy fingertips. _“This is where I died and was born,”_ he’d said.

Emily never forgot the path his touch had made. She never forgot those words, either. She understood exactly how it felt to have a wound both break and make you, to have a death change the shape of your name.

The apple of the Outsider’s throat tensed under her mouth, as if his skin still felt the pain of the blade. Emily kissed the spot again, eager to fold her touch into the memory, burying kindness in with the grief, just as he had done for her.

Later, when she could speak again, Emily said: "You should be my morning alarm more often. It's much nicer waking up to you than that damn clock."

"If you're inviting me to spend the night," he began, his grin as wicked and dark as his eyes, "I'm afraid you'll have to try a better seduction than that."

The Outsider disappeared before Emily could thump him with her pillow, only to appear again on her vanity set, propping his feet up on its velvet-cushioned chair.

"The same goes for you," she shot back. "You're over four thousand years old, I'm sure you've got a few good lines stored away to use."

The Outsider looked swiftly into Emily's eyes, unblinking, and spoke with all the warmth he had learned from her. "I would pull the magic from my bones for you," he said.

Emily stared at him, astonished. "I'd never... I wouldn't ask you to do that.”

"I know," he said. "But even so. I would. For you."

"And what would I have to give up in return?"

"Only an inch. Just the smallest of spaces.” The Outsider clasped his hands and leaned forward, his whisper racing lightning fast across the distance. “Let me stay near you."

Her head was spinning. This time, the Outsider was here to catch her, but Emily wasn’t sure that would make her any less dizzy.

"Well there's the secret storage space where I keep everything in my scandalous arsenal," she quipped, jerking her thumb towards the dark oak-paneled walls near her closet. "You'd be right at home locked up in there."

It was a frail attempt at a joke and they both knew it, but something unthinkable happened after she said it. The Outsider _laughed_. It sounded like funeral hymns, rusted hinges, and the sigh of the changing tides. Never before had Emily been so charmed by his strangeness than she was in that moment. And, judging by his long look and the new layer of tension tied taut between them, the Outsider was likewise afflicted.

This moment unfurling here, now, at the rosy feet of dawn, was a new kind of dream for them both, and it thrilled and terrified them alike.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a rough Thanksgiving, this time of year always makes me nearly suicidally depressed, and the only thing that helps is writing. So, here you go. Reap the fruits of my miserable endeavors!!
> 
> Also the "morning alarm" is totally meant to be a pun on mourning idk


End file.
